Medusa vs. Christ

The Daily Pic: When Rome had to choose between old gods and a new one

A few days ago, I Daily Pic’d the moment when Christianity and Islam came head to head. But that hardly counts as a clash, compared to the four centuries when Christ and the pagan gods fought for the Romans’ allegiance. The Onassis Cultural Center in New York is hosting an engrossing show that looks at that conflict, and at the wild mash-ups it sometimes produced as its art. This pair of photos shows two faces of the same stone slab, with Medussa carved on one and a cross on the other. Perseus meets Jesus: for a little while, it looked as though they could live side by side.